A Glass Lewis release said: "Micron Technology's performance has steadily deteriorated during the past three years, culminating in a $1.8 billion loss in 2009 and a return on equity of negative 33.9 per cent, one of the lowest among the companies appearing on our Overpaid 25 list."

Micron has not had a good return from its investment in Appleton (above) based on these figures.

Still, Appleton's excess is nothing compared to that of Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz, who took home $39m in 2009. Glass Lewis said: "As the highest-paid CEO on our S&P 500 Overpaid list, Ms. Bartz represents a problem we find at many other firms with poor pay-for-performance grades: excessive compensation awarded to executives to encourage them to join or remain with a company."

Recently several executives have left Yahoo!, apparently not believing in Bartz's recovery strategy. ®